my job is stuck in the stone ages w/ a process done daily recording a broadcast from tv to vcr. i know i can record this broadcast to a dvr, but i need to weekly record that archive to dvd. if i can just get the files on to a usb drive it would make everything fine. i just put usb in the title because that seemed an option, but im totally open to any suggestions.

the added "challenge" is that a portion of the recording process is done on a video 1 output...

so, the process entails:

recording from video 1, then live tv and i need to get that to a video file, so that i may burn it to a dvd weekly.

Yes, the new Magnavox MDR515H/F7 should work. It includes a 500GB HDD, where everything could be recorded, plus an on-board DVD burner where you could dump stuff when needed. You could also record directly to DVD, but the HDD media is much more reliable so you cna be more asssured of getting an original recording to view and do stuff with.